Batteries or combination of cells that we primarily use for energy storage today are expensive, heavy, short-lived, larger space-occupying and literally not environment-friendly. However, the era of their ubiquitously dominating presence will soon be over owing to the rapid progress in the field of developing ‘supercapacitors'.
Like batteries, supercapacitors, also known as ultracapacitors, can be produced in different sizes and shapes as per various requirements. So, soon we may see them being used literally anywhere and everywhere. Naturally, the question arises – what is their status of development at this moment? Unlike batteries that store energy electro-chemically, supercapacitors hold the same electrostatically (except Electric Double-Layer Capacitor or EDLC).when it comes to application, a combination of both battery and supercapacitor technology is working very effectively, and the same is being deployed at different kind of projects. For example, Duke Energy, the largest investor-owned utility in the United States, has deployed a hybrid battery-ultracapacitor energy storage system at a distribution substation in Gaston County.
his hybrid system uses the ultracapacitors to perform solar smoothing at the distribution circuit in real-time – particularly when the solar power on the grid fluctuates due to overcast sky condition. The batteries are simultaneously used to perform energy shifting of a large solar system on the distribution circuit. This system combines the high power, fast response ultracapacitors with energy dense batteries to maximize utility system value by offering simultaneously occurring grid services at a lower system cost.
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